Accused Silk Road operator maintained journal about website: U.S.

NEW YORK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The accused operator of the
online black marketplace Silk Road had a digital journal on his
laptop detailing the development of the website and predicting
it would become a "phenomenon," jurors heard on Wednesday.

Prosecutors showed jurors in Manhattan federal court journal
entry excerpts dated in 2010 and 2011 found on a laptop seized
when the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht, who authorities say
operated the website where drugs and other illicit goods could
be bought with bitcoins.

"Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one
person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator,"
a 2010 journal entry on Ulbricht's laptop said.

The documents came on the fifth day of the high-profile
trial to spill out of U.S. authorities' efforts to crack down on
the use of the digital currency bitcoin for drug trafficking and
other crimes.

Prosecutors say Ulbricht operated Silk Road under the alias
"Dread Pirate Roberts" in a scheme that generated $200 million
in drug sales until authorities shut the website down.

Ulbricht has pleaded not guilty to charges including
conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking. Joshua Dratel, his
lawyer, has acknowledged Ulbricht created Silk Road but says his
client became the "fall guy" for its true
operators.

Prosecutors introduced the journal entries as well as
chatlogs found on the laptop in an effort to demonstrate
Ulbricht was Silk Road's operator.

A 2010 entry on Ulbricht's laptop said the website was
originally going to be called "Underground Brokers."

"The idea was to create a website where people could buy
anything anonymously, with no trail whatsoever that could lead
back to them," the journal said.

A 2011 journal entry detailed the launch of Silk Road, a
"huge spike in signups" after getting press attention and calls
by two U.S. senators for Silk Road's shutdown.

"I was mentally taxed, and now I felt extremely vulnerable
and scared," the journal said. "The US govt, my main enemy was
aware of me and some of it's members were calling for my
destruction."

A Dec. 29, 2011, journal entry detailed going out that day
with a woman who knew "I work with bitcoin" and telling her
about having "secrets."

"It felt wrong to lie completely so I tried to tell the
truth without revealing the bad part, but now I am in a jam,"
the entry wrote. "Everyone knows too much. Dammit."

The case is U.S. v. Ulbricht, U.S. District Court, Southern
District of New York, No. 13-06919.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; editing by Andrew Hay)